By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) has not been able to account for N540 billion which the agency is supposed to pay to the federation account as part of its earnings between 2012 and 2013, the Public Accounts Committee of the National Conference disclosed yesterday.
The amount, according to the committee, which is headed by a former Governor of Kebbi State, Senator Adamu Aliero, was part of the revenue it generated between 2012 and 2013.
The Committee’s report, which was debated at plenary on yesterday, recorded at Table 4 on page 23, that about N91 billion was recorded as revenue by the NPA in 2009, while only N5.2 billion was returned as “remitted to federation account.”
Also, the sum of N102 billion was captured as revenue in 2010, out of which only N3.5 billion was remitted, while N120 billion was earned in 2011, out of which only a paltry N1 billion was remitted to the federation account.
The report also said N128 billion was earned in 2012, of which N10.8 billion was paid into the federation account, while of the N131 billion earned as revenue in 2013, only N3.2 billion was returned to the federation account.
It also said NPA recorded that N172 billion has been earned so far in 2014, with no record of any amount paid to the Federation Account.
Total earnings for the period comes to about N575 billion while total remittances come to about N30.2 billion, leaving more than N540 billion unaccounted for.
The Committee also said in its report that NPA “operates under an ambiguous and unclear framework.”
It further said, “The level of remittance when compared to revenue is ridiculously low and unstable in spite of authority’s explanation that a large percentage of the revenue was expended on operating costs and capital expenditure”.
The Committee therefore, sought amendment of NPA’s law regarding remittance of its surplus, so as to remove any provisions that contravene Section 162 of the constitution as it affected remittance of revenues into the federation account.
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